Saving energy, improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are key initiatives in many cities and municipalities and for building owners and operators. The inventors in this disclosure have recognized that to reduce energy consumption in buildings, one should understand how heat is transferred from the outside to inside the buildings to various zones inside and how heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems supply the building insides with air temperature and humidity to provide comfortable indoor climate for building occupants. For instance, one should understand the heat conduction, convection, radiation through a building envelope and between zones, latent and sensible heat inside the building, heat transfer through walls, windows, roofs and infiltration through the building openings, and others about the building. The inventors have further recognized that this understanding can be aided through development of a thermal heat transfer model by estimating heat transfer parameters (also called heat transfer coefficients) such as conduction parameters, convection parameters, infiltration parameters and solar radiation parameters. However, limited observable data and insufficient building information hinders such modeling, i.e., estimating the thermal parameters.